When a portion of bone is lost due to injury or a bone-eroding condition, the person experiencing bone loss is forced to adopt a different lifestyle than before the bone loss. High benefit is provided by technologies allowing persons that have experienced bone loss to carry on activities similar to before bone loss. In the case of teeth, which are at high risk of being lost by aging or disease, partial dentures or implant are used as substitutes for lost teeth. However, problems arise in that hard foods cannot be eaten with partial dentures, while effort is also necessary for the unavoidable daily removal and cleaning. With implant, on the other hand, new teeth are established and therefore almost no change is necessary to dietary habits, compared to partial dentures and the like.
Implant is a method in which a screw-shaped object known as a fixture is implanted in the hole opened in alveolar bone following tooth extraction, in place of a tooth, and after being fused, a prosthesis is mounted over the fused fixture. When fusing the fixture, it is desirable for the gap between the fixture and the alveolar bone to be firmly filled with regenerated bone. Methods have been established for regenerating bone-equivalent components in the gap between fixtures and alveolar bone, such methods being known as Guided Bone Regeneration (GBR).
In GBR, a fixture must be fused to alveolar bone. If the fixture does not become fused to the alveolar bone, then even if the prosthesis is mounted on the fixture, the fixture may become loose resulting in poor dental meshing and difficulty in eating food. Consequently, fusing the fixture to alveolar bone is the most important step in implant operations. In this step, a hole is opened in the alveolar bone and then a membrane must be used to produce regenerated bone in the alveolar bone. The period of regenerated bone production is the period in which the implant has not been completed and the patient feels a burden on routine dietary habits, and it is therefore desirable to produce regenerated bone more rapidly. Normally, 3 to 9 months is required for production of regenerated bone.
Membranes used in GBR methods include absorbable membranes and non-absorbable membranes. In regard to non-absorbable membranes, Non-Patent Literature 1 discloses a PET/collagen/hydroxyapatite membrane. Absorbable membranes, on the other hand, include membranes made of collagen, and membranes made of human skin.